Re: Artists and Engineers

Alexander Chislenko (alexc@firefly.net)
Wed, 30 Oct 1996 12:26:04 -0500


At 12:33 PM 10/30/96 GMT, Nicholas Bostrom <N.BOSTROM@lse.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> I am not sure your definition captures the gist of our
> intuitive notion of art if it includes crack cocaine as an
> art form?
>
I would agree that crack isn't an art form though the results may be
enjoyable. I would atribute this to the fact that the role of human
action here is just to get the drug (that's economics), and not in
shaping the experience. An analogy would be to drive to an ocean.
You provide the steering, the ocean provides the fun. (If you drew
or filmed the ocean, and sculpted the cliffs, it would have been art).
I was trying to draw the art/engineering distinction within the realm
of intentional action, where they both belong.
I wonder if any of these topics have been covered by "real" philosophers.
What are the philosophers doing these days, anyway?

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